This picture released by the Iranian state-run IRIB News Agency on Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016, shows detention of American Navy sailors by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Persian Gulf, Iran. Iranian state television is reporting that all 10 U.S. sailors detained by Iran after entering its territorial waters have been released. Iran's Revolutionary Guard said the sailors were released Wednesday after it was determined that their entry was not intentional. (Sepahnews via AP)

Two U.S. Navy boats were on their way from Kuwait to Bahrain on Jan. 12 when one of them broke down—in Iranian territorial waters.

The next morning the Iranians flew in a TV news crew to film the sailors. The sailors say they were told to act happy, eat, and drink while the news team recorded them.

Then a sailor was told to read a script.

After he tried to evade reading the script that said “We were sorry that we entered into Iranian territorial waters and that we were treated well,” he was told that they would not be released until he read it exactly as was written.

When he was done, the sailors were blindfolded and led back to the small boat and on to the USS Anzio. The group were then flown by helicopter to a Qatar airbase.

Failures in Leadership and Training

The report blamed the incident on defective planning, and failing to report the boat failures to the operations center, as well as failing to report the sighting of unpredicted land, and not properly using the navigation system.

“Had any crew member zoomed into the purple dot, they would have discovered the purple dot was Farsi Island,” the report said.

The U.S. Navy also pointed out leadership failures.

“[Commanding Officer] exercised poor leadership in that he failed to set the conditions for success prior to the transit,” said the report.

“When tasked with extending the RCBs in the Northern Arabian Gulf (NAG), he failed to adapt support and oversight of his disaggregated forces, resulting in degraded RCB maintenance, declining standards, and poor morale,” it continued.

The Navy announced the day the report was released that it had taken disciplinary action against nine service members in connection with the incident.